2 DoF Antenna Gimbal

Gimbal for airborne FMCW radar system

Project to support a RSC research effort

Development of a 2 DoF antenna gimbal to ensure antenna is NADIR to boost snow penetrating performance. System was field deployed successfully on DHC-6 Twin Otter in Spring 2023.  This project involves:

• Custom stepper motor driver development

• Integration of IMU, hall effect rotary encoder for stepper motor feedback

• Implementation of calibration sequence for power-cycle recovery and PID controllers for nominal operation

• Codebase in Python for main control code and C++ for hall effect driver

Project in publication

• S. Kolpuke, et al., "Airborne Multichannel UWB FMCW Radar for Snow Depth Measurements," in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 62, pp. 1-18, 2024, Art no. 2001918, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2024.3359125.